Music metadata from Tag or File

[elan]

You should be able to point it at the location of the XML file, and then all you’d need is to ensure the paths are mounted at the same place as referred to in the file. Might be a bit of a pain but should only need to do once and then it’ll import all that important history (I moved from iTunes myself, so I know what it’s like!)

https://support.plex.tv/articles/200289536-plugins/

[ecrsail]

Hi Elan,

I took the confidence in your last note as a sign that I should try harder to leverage the existing feature. I’ve done everything I can to try to do so, including confirming the paths to the media folder using a terminal shell and pwd after mounting, deleting the old Music library and creating new ones from scratch for each test, examining the XML file with a text editor and adjusting the paths to more directly point to the music folders, but after all of these experiments, I have yet to see any evidence that the “iTunes Library.xml” file is even being consulted when Plex rebuilds the Music library.

I’ve taken the liberty to describe my setup more precisely below. I’d greatly appreciate it if you could scan through it and suggest any next steps for me:

My new Plex server is running on a MacPro (3.5 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon E5) with 32 GB RAM under a dedicated user “plex”

The “iTunes Library.xml” file that I’m trying to import metadata from was copied from another (much slower) machine and placed in the appropriate directory for the plex user:

bash-3.2$ pwd

/Users/plex

bash-3.2$ cd Music/iTunes

bash-3.2$ ls -l

total 18688

-rw-r–r--@ 1 plex staff 8537221 Sep 4 16:25 iTunes Library.xml

drwxr-xr-x 4 root staff 128 Jun 30 14:00 iTunes Music

The Music folder containing all of the music files is mounted from a NAS on the local network. The share is mounted on the server as /Volumes/Media and the folder Music exists as a top-level folder on that share as follows:

bash-3.2$ whoami

plex

bash-3.2$ cd /Volumes/Media

bash-3.2$ ls -l

total 0

drwxr-xr-x 1 plex staff 21376 Aug 29 20:43 Movies

drwxrwxrwx 1 plex staff 20492 Sep 12 09:26 Music

drwxr-xr-x 1 plex staff 264 May 27 2018 Photos

drwxr-xr-x 1 plex staff 466 Aug 30 16:15 TV

drwxr-xr-x 1 plex staff 500 Aug 28 23:19 Video

bash-3.2$ pwd

/Volumes/Media

When I create the Music library within Plex, the path /Volumes/Media/Music is given:

For further reference, here is the start of the iTunes Library.xml file referenced above, showing the path to the Music folder and the path to the first track in my library. Unfortunately I don’t think there is any way to specify the path to the iTunes Library.xml file itself when creating a Music library in Plex, and I’ve been unable to confirm/deny whether Plex is actually referencing this file when I check the “Import from iTunes” box when creating the Music library.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<key>Major Version</key><integer>1</integer>

<key>Minor Version</key><integer>1</integer>

<key>Date</key><date>2019-06-28T00:24:17Z</date>

<key>Application Version</key><string>11.4</string>

<key>Features</key><integer>5</integer>

<key>Show Content Ratings</key><true/>

<key>Music Folder</key><string>/Volumes/Media/</string>

<key>Library Persistent ID</key><string>A9C9E048F3AF527F</string>

<key>Tracks</key>

<dict>

	<key>3926</key>

	<dict>

		<key>Track ID</key><integer>3926</integer>

		<key>Name</key><string>Carolina</string>

		<key>Artist</key><string>Sheryl Crow</string>

		<key>Album</key><string>Message In A Bottle</string>

		<key>Kind</key><string>MPEG audio file</string>

		<key>Size</key><integer>3766776</integer>

		<key>Total Time</key><integer>235415</integer>

		<key>Date Modified</key><date>2005-01-30T19:43:35Z</date>

		<key>Date Added</key><date>2003-12-27T22:46:44Z</date>

		<key>Bit Rate</key><integer>128</integer>

		<key>Sample Rate</key><integer>44100</integer>

		<key>Play Count</key><integer>11</integer>

		<key>Play Date</key><integer>3308990620</integer>

		<key>Play Date UTC</key><date>2008-11-08T19:03:40Z</date>

		<key>Album Rating</key><integer>80</integer>

		<key>Album Rating Computed</key><true/>

		<key>Normalization</key><integer>1513</integer>

		<key>Persistent ID</key><string>A9C9E048F3AF528A</string>

		<key>Track Type</key><string>File</string>

		<key>Location</key><string>/Volumes/Media/Music/Sheryl%20Crow/Message%20In%20A%20Bottle/Carolina.mp3</string>

		<key>File Folder Count</key><integer>5</integer>

		<key>Library Folder Count</key><integer>1</integer>

	</dict>